Anthropology of Food Honors

Catalog description

This course is an anthropological approach to understanding temporal and spatial variation in human food consumption and nutrition: why do we eat what we eat? To answer this question, we approach it from multiple perspectives: biological, evolutionary, ecological and social. In this course, students will investigate how food tastes, preferences, and diets of different individuals and societies both in the past and present are affected by genetic variation, by processes of individual and cultural learning, by evolutionary and ecological forces and histories of ecological and social interaction, by existing social contexts and structures, and by global political and economic forces. Topics include a broad survey of human and nonhuman primate diets and their physiological and behavioral correlates; theories of optimal diet breadth and prey choice; fossil and archaeological evidence for early human diets; genetic adaptations to diet; metabolic syndrome; food security; food taboos; the origins and cross cultural uses of spices; ecological impacts of hunting, gathering, and agropastoralism especially relative to food webs, biodiversity and sustainability; cultural diversity in the social uses and meanings of food and the sharing of food and how sociopolitical contexts have shaped the overexploitation of certain resources throughout history. Students will come away from this course with an understanding of the diversity of human foodways through time and space: how biology, culture, and ecology interact to shape the food we eat, and how the food we eat shapes us.